Nothing to Lose

  “I never have. I’m not looking for an opportunity like some I know. I mean, back there, I tried to leave. But, yeah, if it’s ever me or them, it’s gonna be me.”

  We walked in silence. The road was deserted, dark. No cars were coming anymore, and none were leaving, so the only sound was the scrape-scrape of our shoes against pavement. I thought how different she was from Mom, who always needed someone else to help her.

  “But I wanted to defend you,” I said, knowing as I said it that it was the wrong thing. “I wanted to deck the guy or something. I’ve been wanting to kick his ass for a while. I tried once, and someone stopped me.”

  She smiled, though I could only see the outline of it. “I know. I could see in your face how bad you wanted to hit him.”

  “So why didn’t you let me?”

  She shrugged. “What would have happened if you’d hit him?”

  “There’d have been a big fight.”

  “And…?”

  “I’d have kicked the shit out of him.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe everyone would have taken his side. He seemed to have a lot of friends there. Maybe they’d have kicked the shit out of you. No. That was my battle. I think it was better to let me fight it.”

  “With a knife?”

  “Carnies are tough people, Michael. You have to be to live this life.”

  “Why do you want to?” I asked.

  “It’s all I have now,” she said. “I’ve left everything else.”

  I slowed my steps, wanting to stay with her longer and knowing we’d have to split up at the bus stop. I didn’t want to.

  “Do you…?” I didn’t know how to ask what I wanted to ask. “I mean, have there been other guys like me in other places you’ve been?”

  I expected her to maybe get mad at me, like that day on the Ferris wheel when I asked if she’d kissed a lot of guys. But instead, she slowed her steps to match mine.

  “No one like you. But, of course, there have been other guys.”

  “Guys you left and forgot about?” I asked, feeling cruel.

  “Not forgot exactly. But, yeah, once you leave the first time, you get used to leaving.”

  I stopped walking, and so did Kirstie. I could still hear the band at the party if I tried, like the party had gone on without us, the space where we’d been closing up without a patch. But the trees sounded like maracas, and I liked that sound better. I drew Kirstie toward me, putting my fingers on her back, feeling her spine and each little rib. She was tall, so I didn’t have to lower my head too much to kiss her eyelids, her cheeks. I loved her. I loved her for being strong enough to carry a knife and not being afraid to use it. We stood there, dancing to the house music and the cicada music, dancing like we hadn’t at Alex’s house.

  I said, “I don’t want you to leave.”

  She touched my hair. Her lips brushed my cheek, and she said, “That’s what I do, Michael. I leave. It’s the only thing I’m really good at.”

  “I don’t want you to,” I repeated.

  “I haven’t left yet,” she said. “There’s still time.”

  The bus pulled up to the stop. Her bus. She pulled away and started toward it, then turned back and held out her hand.

  “Come with me tonight,” she said. “Come home with me.”

  THIS YEAR

  “Is Angela here?” I ask Karpe. I glance at my watch. Four o’clock. At the fairgrounds, they know I’ve left by now. “I mean, can I wait for her? I didn’t want to go to the office in case…”

  “In case you were on the news?” Karpe holds open the door. “You were. I mean, you will be. They had this promo: ‘Runaway son spotted at fair, more at six.’”

  “Maybe I should leave.”

  Karpe pushes the door open farther. “She’ll be expecting you.”

  I step in. Their house is one of those Old Spanish houses in Coral Gables, where it feels like an army could invade and you’d still be safe. Karpe’s alone, and I see books and papers scattered on the dining room table. The television hums in the background.

  “Karpe, why are you so nice to me?” I remember blowing him off to go to the party that night last year. “I mean, I never did anything that nice for you.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. It isn’t every guy who’d fix you up with a contortionist.”

  I smile a little at that. “Tiffany still talks about you sometimes. She says you were the one who got her to quit smoking.”

  “The diseased-lung speech never fails. Maybe when this is over, you’ll take me back there.”

  I nod, but I know I’ll never go back. I think Karpe knows too.

  “Thing is, though,” he says, “I probably didn’t talk her into anything. Usually people know the right thing all along. They just need a little push sometimes.”

  “Maybe so.” I have the feeling he isn’t talking about Tiffany anymore.

  “Listen,” Karpe says. “I’m cramming for a trig midterm, but Angela should be here soon. You can talk to her then.”

  He takes me to the room with the TV. He shuts the door behind me, and I’m alone. I feel the bulge in my pocket, Cricket’s money. I pull it out and smooth the bills. Fifty dollars—a ten, three fives, and twenty-five ones. I open my duffel bag to shove it in. The first thing I see is a slip of paper on top. I recognize Cricket’s childish handwriting and a name: Kirstie.

  The phone number has the 225 area code I’ve called so many times.

  I stare at the paper, hearing her voice in my head saying Happy birthday, Michael. My birthday passed a week ago, with no one saying anything. I want to scream and jump and run downstairs to call her. But then I hear the clank of the jail door, the slam of Walker’s body hitting the fireplace, and I know that Kirstie can’t help me. Not now.

  Still, I fold the paper and slide it into my wallet between Cricket’s bills and my own.

  LAST YEAR

  When I was a kid, I wanted to live at the fair. I ran away from Mom once, planning to stay, planning to live on corn dogs and cotton candy and ride the rides forever. An hour later Mom picked me up at the Lost Children booth when my money ran out.

  But people—lots of people—lived at the fair. There were maybe a hundred trailers in this walled-off section that was in the center of everything but hidden unless you looked.

  It was after one o’clock when Kirstie and I got there, but lights blazed. A woman hung laundry outside a trailer, and a boy walked a shepherd mix, using a Baggie to pick up what it left. Heavy metal and country blared from competing radios, and no one seemed to mind. Kirstie said something to most people. But she held my hand.

  When she reached one trailer, she thumped the door. “Home sweet home, and alone sweet alone!” She opened the door with a key from her money belt.

  “So, rich boy, ever been in a trailer before?”

  “Actually, my mom and I lived in one for a while, smartass. Then the city tore down the trailer park because it was bringing down their property values.”

  “Bet that made you feel good.” Kirstie reached to turn on a light.

  “I liked it there,” I said. “It was comfortable.”

  The trailer was small and old, with saggy furniture that belonged on a garbage heap. I looked around like you do when you go to a new person’s house, trying to find a part of the person who lives there. No sign of Kirstie’s pre-carny life. A door to our left led into a bedroom, or, at least, a sort of closet with a bed in it. A few stuffed animals—the type that were small prizes in her game—were lined up on a faded yellow blanket. One wall of the main room was covered in postcards. A card from Mount Rushmore hung beside one of a giant stone chicken and another of musclemen on South Beach. Then I saw it—an old photo, barely visible underneath, of two little girls, one six, one maybe two. The older girl held a Chinese parasol. I looked away, feeling like I’d seen something she didn’t want to show me.

  I pointed at the SoBe postcard. “You’ve been here before?” I said.

  “I’ve been everywh
ere. I’ve seen the world.”

  I stepped toward the wall and touched the photo, wondering if there was writing on the back.

  “I just bought this trailer,” she continued. “Got a good deal on it from a guy who used to tour with his tattooed-lady mother. Sold it to me when she died.”

  “Where’d you live before that?”

  “Oh, you can rent a bed in a trailer with a bunch of other carnies for a few bucks a week. Some even sleep in their joints. But I needed someplace to be alone at night, where no one would mess with me.”

  Mess with me. I remembered my conversation with Cricket. I nodded, and she went on.

  “So, I raised the money. I got a job in the off-season, waiting on drunks at a strip club. Not work I’m proud of, but the money was good.”

  I glanced at her. She was so pretty. “Just … waiting tables?”

  She smiled. “They told me I could make big bucks dancing. But I’ve got stage fright, I guess … or something. Besides, you make good tips waitressing because guys think they have a chance with the waitresses—not that they did. I don’t mind anyone looking at me. Look. Be happy. But I decide who touches me. I decide.”

  She turned and met my eyes. When she did it, her hair brushed my arm, and I felt a shower of sparks go up it. I was a little freaked out, being there with her. It didn’t seem real.

  But I said, “Can I touch you, Kirstie?”

  She leaned toward me until we were so close it would have been impossible not to kiss her. She hadn’t had beer at the party, and I was glad, because now she tasted sweet, like lipstick and lemonade, and then her hands were on me, running down my body, fumbling with the buttons of my 501s.

  “I’ve never…,” I started, feeling like a little kid with her.

  But she put her finger to my lips. “It’s okay.”

  I picked her up like—I don’t know—some cool guy in a movie and carried her through the door to her narrow bed. I dropped her onto it, sending the pile of stuffed Cliffords and Snoopys to the floor.

  Outside I could hear the voices from other trailers. But I stopped listening or thinking. It felt fine, having something that wasn’t about Mom, wasn’t about Walker, but was just about me. Me and Kirstie. I kissed her again and was unbuttoning her last button when I heard a noise from the floor.

  The beeper in my jeans pocket was going off.

  It was two A.M.

  THIS YEAR

  It’s two hours later when Angela comes in.

  I say, “I left. I couldn’t stay.”

  “I know. I heard about it on WIOD news.”

  “Do they know where I am?”

  “No. But they’re talking like they do.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You can stay with us.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “That’s up to you. I can take you in, let you stay awhile. But I can’t do that without telling anyone about it. You’re a minor, and it would be illegal. Or I can give you some money for a bus ticket out of town.”

  I feel Cricket’s money, Kirstie’s phone number in my pocket. I could go find her.

  “But Michael, I don’t recommend that. I’ve seen what happens to boys your age, out on their own.”

  I hear Walker’s voice … guys just waiting for a piece of your pretty, white ass. I feel my eyebrows tighten. A year after his death, Walker still has the power to make me angry. I know I should tell Angela the truth. Even if she doesn’t want me to tell anyone, I should tell her.

  Angela’s still talking, still going on about what would happen. “You’ve been lucky, this past year. But that luck won’t last. The streets harden people. I’d hate to see that happen to you. I’ve really gotten to like you.”

  I smile, wondering if she’ll still like me once she knows.

  “Angela,” I say, “I want them to know. I want to talk to them.”

  “You wouldn’t necessarily have to. Your knowledge is limited. You left days before it happened. We could say—”

  “Angela.” I look down. “I was there the night it happened.”

  LAST YEAR

  But the night one week before Walker died, I was at the emergency room at Mercy Hospital. I’d been there before.

  An emergency room at night is like one of those old, silent movies where everyone moves really fast but no one seems to be going anywhere. A nurse pushed past me, and Kirstie gripped my elbow to pull me out of the way. I didn’t see my mother yet. It was almost four.

  It had taken a while to find a working phone at the fairgrounds. When I finally did, the answering machine picked up at home. I called five, six more times, hanging up, then redialing again and again to make sure, trying Mom’s cell phone, too. My throat felt like someone had poured cement down there.

  “Maybe you should just go home,” Kirstie said.

  “What if she’s not home, though? Shit. I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not my fault? Who the hell else’s fault is it?” I gripped the receiver and fumbled for more change.

  Kirstie took the phone from me.

  “Who are we calling to pick you up?” she said.

  “Karpe.” Without another thought. He was the one person I knew who wouldn’t bust my chops for calling him late.

  Kirstie nodded and put coins in the slot. I gave her his number. She handed me the phone.

  “’Lo?” Karpe’s voice sounded strangled when he answered. Still, I explained where I was and why I needed to go home. He didn’t say anything about the time. He didn’t ask questions.

  Until he got there.

  “This has happened before?” he asked, like he knew the answer. Kirstie had waited with me at the entrance. I’d tried to tell her she didn’t have to come, but she squeezed into Karpe’s car. She held my hand.

  I answered Karpe’s question. “Yeah. It happens all the time.”

  He just nodded and sped over the rutted grass and muddy tire tracks of the fairground parking lot. When we reached Eighth Street, he said, “I hate this. Why do women put up with that shit? Why don’t they just leave?”

  Kirstie’s grip on my elbow tightened. “They think they need a man, then worry what people will say if they leave.”

  “Shit,” Karpe said.

  The beeper in my pocket went off again.

  When I called the number—Mom’s cell phone—I got Walker.

  “Where is she?” I demanded. My throat hurt with what I wanted to say, but I needed to make nice. I wanted him to talk to me.

  “I just called to say you don’t need to worry about her,” he said. “She’s fine.”

  “Where are you?”

  “She had a little accident.”

  “Are you at the hospital? Let me talk to her.”

  “Nah, she’s fine. You just stay with your little friends. I’ll take care of things, like always.”

  Beep. The line went dead.

  When I tried to call back, I got no answer.

  “Change of plans,” I told Karpe. “Head to the hospital.”

  We were already on the Rickenbacker Causeway, but Karpe found the next opening and made a U-ey.

  “Let me guess,” Kirstie said. “She fell down the stairs.”

  I nodded. “Or ran into a wall a few times. And he’s with her, making sure she gets the story straight.”

  “Making sure she doesn’t tell the truth, huh?” Karpe said. “That she ran into his fist.”

  When he saw the look on my face, he said, “Sorry.”

  The first person I saw when I walked into the E.R. waiting room was Walker. He was talking to a black nurse. He wore a button-down and looked like he’d showered and changed before coming. He laughed at something the nurse had said.

  “I hear you,” he said. “I’m the same way—overworked and underpaid. But I was just wondering if you could take a look. She’s feeling bad. She fell a few hours ago. Seemed alright, then woke up hurting. I’m awfully worried about
her, you know.”

  I looked and saw my mother. She was curled in a ball on an orange chair. She didn’t have any injuries you could see. She usually didn’t. No bruises or black eyes. But her skin was pale, and her lips looked like there was blood in them. I’d seen that before, more than once.

  “What’s wrong with her again?” the nurse asked Walker.

  “She spit up some blood on the way here. Says her stomach hurts.”

  Next to me, Kirstie nudged Karpe. “Let’s look for a candy machine. I’m starved.”

  She gave me a little look like You going to be okay? I nodded and walked over to where my mother was sitting.

  “You’re puking blood?” I touched her shoulder, and she drew away.

  She glanced at Walker. “It’s not that bad. I’m okay.”

  “Sure.”

  But she clutched her stomach, trying to hold the pain in. She looked at Walker, still talking to the nurse. He saw me, and his face sort of clouded up. But you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know him. The nurse looked at my mother too.

  “You’re not okay,” I said. “What the hell did he do this time?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What the hell did he do this time?”

  I wanted to shake her. She drew back and sat there, shivering. She didn’t answer.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  Because, in that one minute, I knew it. I knew that sooner or later he’d kill her. Maybe it would be a week or a month or ten years, but he would. And if I stuck around, I’d get to watch it, or maybe get killed too. Maybe I’d always known it. All the stuff I’d thought about wanting her to leave—it was just something I’d told myself. She’d never leave.

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to know that.

  And it was that knowledge that made my fists clench, that made my throat tighten, that made me want to grab Walker by the collar and scream You bastard! and shake him.

  I did none of it. Walker came over with the nurse.

  “Look, honey. I told you I’d get someone over here.”

  Mom looked up. She met Walker’s eyes, not the nurse’s. They all ignored me.